UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

legal system: federal court system based on English common law; each state has its own unique legal system, of which all but one (Louisiana, which is still influenced by the Napoleonic Code) is based on English common law;

legislative system: bicameral Congress (Senate and House of Representatives)

judicial system: Supreme Court (nine justices; nominated by the president and confirmed with the advice and consent of the Senate; appointed to serve for life); United States Courts of Appeal; United States District Courts; State and County Courts

Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

American Convention on Human Rights (signed only)

Statute of the International Criminal Court (which excludes the death penalty) (only signed)

situation:

The United States, by an administrative point of view, are composed of 50 States and 3 jurisdictions (District of Columbia, Federal Government and Military Administration).To date, the death penalty no longer exists in 19 of the 50 U.S. States and the District of Columbia, better known as the nation’s capital city Washington D.C. The most recent death penalty abolition took place in Delaware in 2016. [See chapter “Abolitions and de facto moratoriums”].The death penalty is still in effect in 31 States and in 2 jurisdictions (Federal Government and Military Administration). Of these 33 “retentionists”, 13 have not carried out an execution in at least 10 years and an additional 5 have not had an execution in at least 5. In practice, only 13 jurisdictions carried out executions in the last 5 years.In 2016, there were 20 executions carried out in only 5 States, compare to 28 executions in 2015, carried out in 6 States.The number of inmates on death row also decreased. As of 1 October 2016, there were 2,902 inmates under a sentence of death, a decrease of 41 from 1 January 2016.There were 30 new death sentences in 2016, in 13 States (19 less than in 2015).Problems with executions in Arizona, Ohio and Oklahoma, states’ inability to obtain lethal injection drugs, exonerations of people who were wrongly convicted, the availability of prison terms of life without parole and the cost of capital trials and the appeals process, are main factors in the persistent decline of executions and death sentences.

ExecutionsTwenty executions took place in only 5 of the 31 States with the death penalty in 2016: Georgia (9); Texas (7); Alabama (2); Missouri (1); Florida (1).It is the first time since Texas resumed executions in 1982 that it doesn’t lead the list of executioners.The 20 executions in 2016 represent the lowest number since 1991. Also the fact that only 5 States have carried out executions is a record, it is the lowest number since 1988.Since death penalty was reintroduced in 1976 up to 31 December 2016, 1,442 executions have been carried out in the USA. Compared to population, the states that carry out more executions are, in order, Oklahoma, Texas, Delaware, Virginia and Missouri.Since 1976, three States have executed only “volunteers”, i.e. death row inmates who voluntarily asked to hasten the execution process: Pennsylvania, Oregon and Connecticut. As a whole, since 1976, 143 inmates have been executed as “volunteers”, 10% of all executed.All executions in 2016 were carried out by lethal injection. And all have involved men. The average age of those executed in 2015 is 48,7 years. The average time between sentencing and execution of those put to death in 2015 was 18.5 years. At the extremes of this average there is a Texas detainee who was executed after 7 years (he was not a "volunteer") and one from Georgia, killed after 36 years on death row.As for race, 16 of those executed in 2016 were White, 2 Black, and 2 Latino. The 20 executed in 2016 had been convicted of 26 murders: the victims were 24 White and 2 Latino.

Death SentencesBesides the executions, death sentences are also constantly decreasing. That is for the minor propensity of juries to hand down the maximum penalty and for always more widespread tendency of prosecutors to “content” themselves with minor sentences in exchange for shorter and more secure trials.According to the Death Penalty Information Center, there were 30 new death sentences in 2016 (19 less than in 2015), the lowest number since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The maximum was in 1996, with 315 capital sentences.For the sixth consecutive year, the number of news death sentences is under 100.Of the 32 States and 2 jurisdictions (Federal Government and Military Administration) with the death penalty in 2016, 13 imposed a death sentence. Death sentences, like executions, were largely clustered in a few States. As usual, the State which handed down the most part of the sentences was California (9) which is the most populated in the USA. Two States handed down 4 death sentneces each (Texas and Ohio). Alabama handed down 3 death sentences, Florida 2 and Arizona, Arkansas, Kansas, North Carolina, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon e Pennsylvania, 1.Texas, that for many years has leaded the number of executions, in 2016 issued only 4 death sentences, the second lowest of every time. In 2015 the sentences had been 2. The maximum was 48, in 1999. As for ethnicity, in 2016 the new death sentences were issued against 17 Blacks, 6 Whites, 3 Asian and 3 Latin-American.

Death RowThe number of people on death row continued to decline. According to figures from NAACP-LDF “Death Row USA”, as of 31 October 2016, there were 2,902 inmates on death rows across the country, a decrease of 41 compared to 1 January 2016. This is the second time since Spring of 1995 that the number of inmates decreases under 3,000. The first time was 2015. At the time the death row population was growing after the Furman v. Georgia sentence of 1972 that had struck down the death penalty, and the Gregg v. Georgia sentence of 1976 that had brought it back.The total population on death row has decreased every year since 2001. In 2000, 3,670 inmates were under a sentence of death.California continued to have the largest death row population (745), followed by Florida (395), Texas (254), Alabama (194), and Pennsylvania (175). California, with 40 million people, is by far the most populous US state (Texas is second, with 28 million, Florida is third with 21 million). Its death row is so populated in part in relation to the high number of death sentences issued, but partly because it has carried out very few executions, 13 from 1976 to today. The latest execution dates back to January 2006.The racial demographics of death row nationwide are 42.2% white, 41.8% black, 13% Latin-American, 1.8% Asian, and 0.9% Native American Overall, 57% of inmates on death row belong to racial minorities.Divided by gender, there are 54 women (1.8%) and 2,848 men (98.1%) on the United States’ death rows.

Abolitions and “de facto” moratoriumsTo date, the death penalty no longer exists in 19 of the 50 U.S. States and 1 jurisdiction (District of Columbia) [In brackets the year of abolition]: Alaska (1957), Connecticut (2012), Hawaii (1957), Illinois (2011), Iowa (1965), Maine (1887), Maryland (2013), Massachusetts (1984), Michigan (1846), Minnesota (1911), Nebraska (2015), New Jersey (2007), New Mexico (2009), New York (2007), North Dakota (1973), Rhode Island (1984), Vermont (1964), West Virginia (1965), Wisconsin (1853), and District of Columbia (1981).In 2015, the death penalty had been abolished in Nebraska, but reintroduced in November 2016 after a ballot question reversing the legislature's repeal of the death penalty and restoring capital punishment in the state passed with 57% of the vote.In four other States – Washington, Colorado, Pennsylvania and Oregon – the Governors granted a stay of executions and essentially put executions on hold because of concerns about the death penalty system.In Ohio, Governor John Kasich has postponed all executions to at least 2016 as a result of the practical and procedural problems related to the supply of lethal drugs. On April 1, 2016 the Attorney General announced that the State will not carry out executions not even in 2016.On September 14, 2016, in Oklahoma, State Attorney General Scott Pruitt said the executions would be suspended for at least another 2 years. In Oklahoma, executions have been suspended since it was discovered that on January 15, 2015, to kill Charles Warner, the prison administration used potassium acetate instead of potassium chloride. A grand jury charged with investigating the case found a series of serious defaults on the part of the penitentiary administration in more than one of the executions carried out since 2014.On September 18, 2016, in North Carolina, Robeson County District Attorney Johnson Britt, and several experts, agreed to predict that executions will not resume until "several years." In the state, following a series of legal actions, the latest execution dates back to August 2006, and since January 2007, the state is considered in a condition of "informal moratorium" after a court has suspended executions.Not a moratorium, but a massive annulment of death sentences was decided on December 22, 2016 in Florida. The State Supreme Court, in Asay v. State and Mosley v. State, considered the approximately 200 death sentences issued from 2002 to today unlawful, while upheld the constitutionality of the over 150 sentences issued before that date. As is well known, in January, the United States Supreme Court with the Hurst v. Florida had declared unconstitutional that part of the capital law that allows death sentences without the unanimity of the jury.Of the 33 jurisdictions where the death penalty is still in effect, 13 have not carried out an execution in more than ten years (hence, we can consider that they are implementing a “de facto moratorium”): California (2006), Colorado (1997), Kansas (1965), Montana (2006), Nebraska (1997), Nevada (2006), NewHampshire (1939), North Carolina (2006), Oregon (1997), Pennsylvania (1999), Wyoming (1992), U.S. Federal Government (2003), and U.S. Military (1961).Five other States have not had an execution in over 5 years: Kentucky (2008), Louisiana (2010), South Carolina (2011), Utah (2010) and Washington (2010).

LegislationDuring 2016, there were many legislative proposals concerning the death penalty, some towards abolition, others to create stricter norms regarding its application and others to facilitate its application. Many of these bills were short-lived, blocked in the preliminary phases of the legislative review process. It must be recalled that the United States Parliaments focus legislative action early in the year, and each state has a deadline by which the new laws are to go, otherwise they should be presented in the following year. These are the bills that have passed at least the early stages of discussion.In Delaware, on 28 January 2016, the House rejected 23-16 a bill (SB 40) that would have abolished the death penalty.In Missouri, on 28 January 2016, an abolitionist bill has passed the Senate Judiciary Committee 4-3, with the favourable vote of two Republican senators and two Democrats. On 13 May 2016, the bill was placed in the so-called “informal calendar”, which means that the measure this year will not go ahead.In New Hampshire, on 3 March 2016, the Senate rejected 12-12 a bill that would have abolished the death penalty, but agreed to discuss one that would establish a moratorium in light to develop a method to prevent miscarriages of justice. New Hampshire is the only New England state to still have the death penalty. The last execution was in 1939, and currently there is only one detainee on death row. In the Senate, a tie vote is tantamount to a defeat. Again in New Hampshire, on 10 March, the House rejected by a vote by acclamation the HB 1522 bill that would have extended the death penalty to “terrorist crimes with more than one victim and the murders committed while the victim exercises its civil rights, like voting, attending school, or else.”In Utah, on 3 March 2016, the Senate Judiciary Committee rejected 2-5 bill HB 136 that would have added the aggravating circumstance of “human trafficking” to those for which the death penalty can be pursued. The bill passed the House Judiciary Committee on February 2 (6-3), and the full House on 12 February (44-28). Also in Utah, on 1 and 2 March 2016, the Senate approved on first and second reading the abolition of the death penalty (SB189). The House's Justice Commission approved it on March 8, but on 11 March it expired the deadline for the House to give the final vote.On 7 March 2016, Florida Governor Rick Scott, Republican, has ratified the law HB 7101. The new law amends the state capital law that was declared unconstitutional on 12 January 2016 by the Supreme Court of the United States. The new law provides that juries can now issue a guilty verdict 10-2 (before, it was 7-5), and that the decision of the jury is binding on the court. In 28 of the 31 states that use the death penalty, unanimity is required to issue a death sentence. The exceptions are Florida, Alabama and Delaware.In Alabama, on 7 April 2016, Senators have voted 20-6 to establish an “Innocence Inquiry Commission” to review some capital convictions. Under the narrowly tailored-bill, the panel would review new evidence in death row cases that hadn’t previously been heard by a court. Republican Sen. Dick Brewbaker, the bill’s sponsor, said he supports the death penalty, but the state should make sure people are guilty "For people to regain confidence in the capital system". At the end of the 2016 legislative session, the bill was shelved with the formula “Updated Sine Die”.On May 3, 2016, still in Alabama, the Parliament sent HB 379, which increases the secrecy surrounding the executions, to the governor's ratification. The law passed the House on March 23 with a 99-0 vote, and the Senate on May 3 with a 28-0 vote. The measure was not ratified by the Governor.In Ohio, on 12 April 2016, the House approved 83-11 a bill (HB 57) that would expand the list of aggravated circumstances under which murders committed “purposely and with prior calculation and design” are classified as aggravated murders. The law, sent to the Senate, has not continued its path.In Virginia, on 24 April 2016, HB 815 went into effect. The new law permits the Virginia Department of Corrections to specially contract with a compounding pharmacy to produce lethal injection drugs and make the identity of the pharmacy a state secret. On April 8 the Governor substituted his secrecy proposal in place of the legislature’s plan to use the electric chair to execute prisoners if lethal injection drugs were deemed unavailable. Senate concurred in Governor’s recommendation 22-16. House concurred in Governor’s recommendation 59-40.In Mississippi, on 3 May 2016, the Governor has ratified SB 2237 that increases the secrecy around executions. The bill had passed the Senate 39-12 and the House 103-13.On October 6, 2016, the New Mexico House approved 36-30 the reinstatement of the death penalty. HB7 bill, filed by deputy Monica Youngblood (Republican), provides for the death penalty for anyone killing a policeman, a corrections officer, or a minor. On October 6, 2016, the Senate closed the special autumn session without considering the measure.On November 8, 2016, California had approved Proposition 66 which proposes to amend the procedures of death sentences in order to expedite the issuance of execution warrants, but on December 20, the California Supreme Court temporarily halted implementation, and on December 28, a state agency (the Office of Administrative Law - OAL) rejected the new law because of "Inconsistencies and ambiguities in the protocol, insufficient justification for some regulations and a need for further response to public comments”.

Methods of ExecutionAll U.S. States and the Federal Government use lethal injection as their primary method of execution. The U.S. Military provides lethal injection as the sole method of execution.Some States use a three-drug protocol, others use a two-drug process, and some a single-drug method for executions.The three-drug protocol uses an anaesthetic, followed by a muscle relaxant to paralyze the inmate and potassium chloride to stop the inmate’s heart. The two-drug protocol uses a sedative as the first element and a lethal dose of a painkiller as the second drug. The one-drug protocol uses a lethal dose of an anaesthetic.The work of several key human-rights groups focusing on the pharmaceutical industry that produces drugs used for lethal injection has made the acquisition of appropriate pharmaceuticals difficult for U.S. prison authorities. This has, in recent years, brought about numerous changes in lethal injection protocols as prison authorities attempt to work around the reluctance of pharmaceutical companies to collaborate in providing drugs traditionally used in the lethal injection process.In an effort to thwart advocacy campaigns by anti-death penalty organisations that utilize freedom of information laws and the media to convince the drug’s makers to cut off the supply, some States have also passed laws to provide a cloak of secrecy around the names of suppliers.In some States the “old methods” are still available upon request by the condemned and generally only for crimes committed before the adoption of lethal injection. The electric chair is still available in 9 States: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Oklahoma (electrocution is authorized if lethal injection is held to be unconstitutional and nitrogen gas is not allowed), South Carolina, Tennessee (also if both lethal injection is found unconstitutional and lethal injection drugs are not available), and Virginia. The Supreme Courts of Georgia and Nebraska have declared the electric chair unconstitutional, but the capital laws have not been updated. The gas chamber is still available in 5 States: Arizona, California, Oklahoma (as of 17 April 2015, nitrogen gas chamber would be employed if either lethal injection drugs are unavailable or if lethal injection is deemed unconstitutional), Missouri and Wyoming (also if lethal injection is ever held to be unconstitutional). The firing squad is available in 3 States: Mississippi (reintrodotta il 3 maggio 2016 e utilizzabile nel caso l’iniezione letale diventi o troppo costosa o impossibile da attuare), Oklahoma (it could be used if none of the previously mentioned methods are allowed) and Utah (in the absence of lethal injection drugs). Hanging is available in 3 States: Delaware, New Hampshire (only if lethal injection cannot be given) and Washington.Of the 1,442 executions carried out in the USA since the death penalty was reintroduced in 1977 and until 31 December 2016, 1,267 were carried out by lethal injection, 158 on the electric chair, 11 in the gas chamber, 3 by hanging and 3 by shooting.

The Supreme CourtIn recent years, the Supreme Court of the United States has made “milestone” decisions, on one side, prohibiting the execution of minors (2005) and the mentally disabled (2002) and, on the other, confirming the constitutionality of lethal injection (2008).As is known, the judges of the Supreme Court are appointed “for life”, and then, because of the very slow replacement of the judges, the guidelines of the Court change very gradually. But one sentence in 2016 has shaken the capital systems of 3 states.On 12 January 2016, the Court declared unconstitutional the capital law of Florida, with repercussions on other two states, Alabama and Delaware, which have very similar laws. Addressing the case Hurst v. Florida, the Court declared the law unconstitutional to the extent that the judge has more power in the jury deciding a death sentence. By an 8-1 vote, the court overturned the death sentence of Timothy Hurst, and simultaneously declared unconstitutional the greatest power that has the judge with respect to the jury in deciding the sentence. The vote of the jury in almost all states is tantamount to a death sentence, because the judge has the duty to respect it. In three states instead, Florida, Alabama and Delaware, the court is not obliged by law to follow the vote of the jury.According to the Supreme Court, this violates the Sixth Amendment, which guarantees the accused’s right to be tried by a “jury of peers”, as if a member of the bench (in this case the judge) has a greater power than the other members, the jury is clearly not composed of “equals.”The Hurst v Florida judgment, beyond the “technicality” on the role of the judge, does not explicitly address the real crux of the matter, namely the fact that Florida, Alabama and Delaware are the only three states that allow the issuance of death sentences without a unanimous vote. Many observers believe that the Supreme Court has made a compromise choice, leaving decisions to local courts and parliaments.After this ruling, Alabama and Florida have modified their laws, tying the judge to respect the majority vote. In Delaware instead, the Parliament has not acted, and a judge has blocked all capital proceedings.Despite the new laws, the Supreme Court again dealt a blow to the capital system of the three states: on 2 May 2016, it overturned the death sentence of Bart Johnson (the case is Bart W. v. Alabama) because it was issued pursuant to a law which has since been declared unconstitutional. On 31 May, the Supreme Court reiterated its position, cancelling the sentence of Corey Wimbley (the case is Wimbley v. Alabama). The same was done on 6 June with Kirksey v. Alabama, and on 3 October with Russell v. Alabama. It seems clear at this point that all death sentences in recent decades in Florida, Alabama and Delaware, states that have more than 600 people on death row, must be questioned.

Exonerations and Commutations“Exoneree” is a technical term that, in the U.S. justice system, indicates an individual convicted in the first degree but absolved on appeal. As is well noted, appeals in the United States are not one-time, unrepeatable events, but can be presented every time the defence feels that it has discovered new elements relevant to exonerating the condemned. It is not rare that certain “appeals” can be presented 20 years or more after initial sentencing. In some cases, the “exonerees” are obviously innocent (in cases where DNA evidence proves the guilt of someone else, for instance), in other cases, there is dismissal on appeal for “lack of evidence” or because, after so many years from the actual crime, the Public Prosecutor no longer has credible witnesses to testify.The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) keeps a list of these “exonerees”, according to which, since 1973 up to 31 December 2016, there have been 156 exonerations in 26 different States. According to “The Innocence List”, the average time between sentencing and the recognition of one’s innocence is 11.3 years. In 20 cases, proof of innocence was thanks to new DNA testing.According to the criteria set by the DPIC, in 2016 no death row inmates were exonerated.In fact, some old capital cases have also had a positive outcome in 2016, but do not match the DPIC’s strict criteria for cataloging.For example, on June 6, 2016 in Texas, Judge Jack Carter dismisses all the charges that in 1978 had led to the death sentence of Kerry Max Cook, meanwhile at the age of 60. Cook continues to pursue a declaration of "actual innocence" that would make him eligible for more than $3 million in compensation from the state of Texas for the two decades he was wrongfully incarcerated on death row. The trial court is expected to rule on that claim later this month and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals will then review the dismissal of charges. Because the dismissal of charges is not yet final, Cook has not yet been added to DPIC's Exoneration List.Another non-profit association, the National Registry of Exonerations (NRE), keeps a list of exemptions, not just for death sentences. According to a NRE study in 2016, 166 people have been exonerated after being convicted of serious crimes, 54 of them for murder. The NRE is a project launched in 2012 by the University of Michigan and Northwestern University. The NRE uses slightly different criteria from those used by the DPIC, and provides more elaborations. For example, according to NRE, assessing cases of exoneration over the last 10 years, improper behaviour by the police or public prosecution, and false testimony would be the main causes of judicial errors. The Registry reports that the improper behaviour of the police or public prosecution had a role, albeit not exclusive, in 571 of the 836 exonerations involving cases of murder (only a part was prosecuted with the death penalty) ie in 68.3% of cases. Witness errors were found in 203 cases (24.3%), fake or misleading forensics in 194 cases (23.2%), and false or "manufactured" confessions in 182 cases (21.8%). The Registry also identifies inadequate legal assistance by defenders in 218 cases (26.1%). According to the analysis of the Register, racial discrimination still has a strong role. There is evidence of improper behaviour of the police and/or the prosecutors in 76% of cases of exoneration where Blacks were charged, compared to 63% of cases of Whites. Restricting the research to only capital cases, the difference between Blacks and Whites is even greater: 87% of Blacks sentenced to death suffered improper behaviour of the police and/or the prosecutors, against 67% of Whites.Death penalty aside, the Obama administration, since the election of the first term, has often referred to the need for reforms to mitigate the harshness of the judicial and prison systems in the nation, in particular, the system of " mandatory minimum sentences" introduced in the federal system by President Clinton, a facet of the larger "war of drugs". The “mandatory minimum sentence” does not give the court the power to independently assess the seriousness of a crime or to contextualize it using any mitigating means, but binds it to issue, for example, a mandatory sentence of 30 years or life if a defendant is arrested for the third time for drug dealing.Within his two mandates, President Barak Obama has issued 774 "commutations" (this is the technical term used in the US). It is more than that of the previous 7 presidents combined, and less than the approximately 14,000 granted by former President Gerald Ford. He commuted the sentences of anyone who had deserted or dodged the draft during the Vietnam War.Almost all of Obama's commutations involved people convicted of non-violent crimes related to drug use and drug trafficking. The commutations issued in 2016 alone are 590, the highest number in a single year in US history.As is well known, it is customary for the US Presidents to conclude their mandates by promulgating a series of clemency measures.On January 17, 2017, three days before Donald Trump sworn in as the new President, Obama issued 209 commutations and 64 pardons.By "commutation" is meant to shorten a sentence, for "pardon" it is intended to have immediate release due to "presidential pardon". The case that has mostly attracted the attention of the media is that of "soldier Manning", sentenced to 35 years for handing to Snowden and Assange the confidential information of the Wikileaks case. But Obama also commuted to life in prison without parole 2 death sentences, that of Abelardo Arboleda Ortiz, a federal death row prisoner, and that of Dwight Loving, a military death row prisoner. It had been since 2001 that a president did not commute a death sentence.

The Cost of the Death PenaltyBesides the consideration of misplaced justice, which has been the subject of political debate in recent years, questions of the “cost of the death penalty” are coming to the fore.As is well known, in the United States the various courts have very precise budgets, which must be accounted for to the last cent. If prosecutors wish to try cases involving the death sentence they must provide more evidence, more lab results, more testimony and the State must provide the accused with better legal counsel. This all has its costs, which increase in successive phases of the legal process, because those who risk death have a right to increased free legal assistance, lab analysis to contrast that of the Prosecution (at cost to the State), and to hire expert witnesses (also at cost to the State) and to present a series of appeals and recourses that are not available to those who risk imprisonment. This means that when prosecutors begin death penalty cases, they start a process which drains funds from the State, and that, often, because of these expenses, there are fewer funds for other activities.In many interviews with politicians and in bills presented in numerous States, the problems related to the “cost of the death penalty” came under focus with consideration of an alternative: giving up on capital punishment, which usually involves people for which there is already ample proof for conviction, and using the money saved to solve cases where criminals have yet to be identified.In debates pro or against the abolition, it is often raised the suspicion that capital trials are for the benefit of few prosecutors who seek visibility, often in order to facilitate political careers, while the high costs end up falling on the entire community.In Ohio, on 1 April 2016, Attorney General Mike DeWine issued a report on capital punishment in his state. Only 1 person was condemned to die last year. A total of 324 death sentences have been handed down under the state’s 1981 law. The report reflects a continued drop in death sentences in Ohio as prosecutors file fewer cases and juries choose the option of life without parole. It also comes at a time when Ohio doesn’t have any lethal drugs. No executions are scheduled this year. The report says 53 inmates have been executed since 1999. 19 have had their sentences reduced to prison time and 27 have died before execution. Ohio has 142 active death penalty cases. Currently, if the state wanted to perform an execution, the state is not in possession of the necessary lethal drugs. In its report DeWine has not explicitly addressed the chapter of the “costs”, but the blatant disproportion between the cases prosecuted as a capital offense and executions actually carried out is inscribed in the national average.In Louisiana, a study published on 28 April 2016 calculated than less than 12 % of death sentences end up in executions. The report “Louisiana Death Sentenced Cases and Their Reversals, 1976-2015” examined each of the 241 death sentences handed down in Louisiana over the past 30 years. Just 28 of those sentenced to death – less than 12 % – have been executed. Meanwhile, 127 of the death verdicts, more than 1/2 the total, have been reversed, meaning that either a new trial was ordered or the death sentence was rescinded. That number includes 9 exonerations.In Utah, on 15 June 2016, it was published a report, commissioned by Parliament and compiled by a state agency. It is estimated that each sentenced to death costs the taxpayer 1.66 million dollars more than a life sentence without parole.In Nebraska on August 19, 2016, a study calculated that the death penalty cost $ 14 million a year. Ernie Goss, an economics professor at Creighton University, completed the death penalty cost review for Retain a Just Nebraska, which was waging a campaign to keep the Nebraska Legislature's repeal of capital punishment. Goss calculated the state spent $533 million on "justice activities" in 2013. Without the death penalty, the cost would have been about $519 million, he wrote. Between 1973 and 2014, Nebraska saw 1,842 homicides and 33 death sentences but only 3 executions, Goss found. The state's last execution took place in 1997.In Virginia on December 11, 2016, an Associated Press inquiry calculated that the state paid over 60 times more lethal drugs than in the previous year.

The Stance of the “Executioner”… and the Victims’ FamiliesThe effects of the death penalty on those who carry it out were clearly described by those who have worked for years on death row.In Ohio, on 24 February 2016, two former Ohio prison bosses who watched dozens of men executed have joined a national group which is “strongly concerned about the fairness and efficacy of the death penalty in America.” Terry Collins and Reginald Wilkinson, both former directors of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, are part Public Safety Officials on the Death Penalty. The Washington, D.C.-based group is a coalition of law enforcement, prosecutors and prison officials. Not all members of the coalition are opposed to capital punishment, but all share the conclusion that the system is “ineffective, expensive and makes mistakes.” Collins, who oversaw 33 executions is also a member of Ohioans Against Executions. He recently published a report in which he wrote: “The death penalty is a defective mechanism that is not worth it to adjust.”Perhaps, the most unexpected stance on the death penalty came from the family members of victims.In Connecticut, on 21 January 2016, Dawn Mancarella, whose mother, Joyce Masury, was murdered 20 years ago, called the death penalty “a waste of energy and money that doesn’t bring justice or closure.” Mancarella had already testified in Parliament against the death penalty in 2012, the year of abolition, and in January 2015 she issued a written statement in which she reiterated her position. The testimony was attached to the court documents relating to the case in which the State Supreme Court discussed the fate of the 11 persons on death row at the time of abolition. Mancarella said that the death penalty forces victims’ family members to “go through the pain of reliving their loved one’s murder over and over again, year after year” through the lengthy appellate process. This, she says, “is the opposite of justice and closure — even if the convicted offender is put to death in one, ten or twenty years, the anguish of losing your loved one never goes away and a state appointed execution doesn’t make you feel any better.” She contrasts the energy and money expended on the death penalty with the state’s treatment of programs to help victims’ families heal: “it is beyond frustrating to see millions of dollars invested into a single capital case,” she says, “while victims’ services are perpetually underfunded.” She concludes, “It is time to give back our misplaced time and energy to the survivors of homicide for their healing and truly honouring their loved one.”In Florida, on 19 February 2016, Darlene Farah reiterated her request that the murderess of her daughter is not sentenced to death. Mrs. Farah is the mother of Shelby Farah, 20, killed during a robbery at a store in 2013. In the trial that began in March 2016 against James Xavier Rhodes, 24, Duval County prosecutors are seeking the death penalty over the objections of Ms. Farah’s family. After unsuccessful attempts to persuade prosecutor Angela Corey to non-capitally resolve the case, Darlene Farah publicly expressed her views in a recent column in TIME. Farah said, “I do not want my family to go through the years of trials and appeals that come with death-penalty cases.” Instead, she wants her family to be able to, “celebrate Shelby’s life, honour her memory and begin the lengthy healing process.” Darlene Farah says her daughter would not have wanted the death penalty to be sought on her behalf, and “more killing in no way honours my daughter’s memory or provides solace to my family.”In Missouri, on December 27, 2016, family members of a victim asked the governor to commute all death sentences. When Missouri executed Jeff Ferguson on march 26, 2014 for the rape and murder of Kelli Hall, her father said the Hall family "believed the myth that Ferguson’s execution would close our emotional wounds." At that time, Jim Hall told reporters "It's over, thank God." But, he now says, it wasn't. In an op-ed in the Columbia Daily Tribune, Mr. Hall writes that his family has "come to deeply regret Ferguson's execution" and appeals to Governor Jay Nixon to commute the death sentences of the 25 men remaining on the state's death row. Hall says that several weeks after Ferguson was executed, his family viewed a documentary film that featured comments from Ferguson that "conveyed such genuine remorse for the pain he caused both our family and his because of his horrible actions." A few months later, the Halls also learned that Ferguson had been a leader in the prison's hospice, GED, and restorative justice programs, including one in which prisoners listened to victims share the devastating impact the crimes had on their lives. The Hall family was able to forgive Ferguson as soon as they saw the film, and Mr. Hall says "my family wishes we had known of his involvement in these programs and been invited to participate. ... I'm convinced significant healing would have occurred for us all if our family had engaged in a frank conversation with him at the prison. I wish I had had the chance -- consistent with my Christian beliefs -- to have told him in person that I forgave him for what he did to our innocent and precious daughter."

The Relationship between Crime and PunishmentIn November 2016 the U.S. Department of Justice released its annual FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2015, reporting no change in the national murder rate since 2013. The massive collection of data and statistics is maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). “Crime in the United States 2015”, with data updated to 2015, is compiled by assembling the data of more than 18,000 bodies of local and national police, and covers about 321 million people, including 3.5 million of Puerto Rico. The report shows that the homicide rate in the US has grown slightly in the last year: 4.9 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. It was 4.5 both in 2013 and 2014. The first survey, in 1993, gave a percentage of 9.5.As the total number, murder (except manslaughter) in 2015 were 15,696, with an increase of 10,8% on 2014. Data on homicides, albeit rising compared to the recent past, are still considered an improvement over a sample year that was identified in 2006: in this case homicides would fall by 9.3%, and the rate of homicides every 10,000 inhabitants of 15.5%. It is also estimated that the increase in murders recorded this year is also the result of two in-depth studies conducted by the media on these data collected by FBI, according to which about 2,000 murders per year were not recorded.To the 15,696 murders, they must be added the so-called “justifiable homicides”, i.e. those committed by police in carrying out their functions, or by individuals for what is considered self-defence. Police in 2015 killed 442 people. Private citizens have killed, respecting the law, 328 people.The figure of the killings by police has been challenged in recent months by some online databases compiled by volunteers (including “Fatal Encounters” and “Killed by Police”). They estimate that police victims are about 1,100 per year. The FBI acknowledges the incompleteness of its data, explained by the fact that the local police have no obligation to provide any updates regarding this type of “crime.”Breaking down the data by region and using the classic division of the United States (Northeast, Midwest, South and West), the Northeast region, which uses the death penalty the least, had the lowest murder rate of the 4 geographic regions. By contrast, the South, which carries out, on average, more executions in the United States, had the highest murder rate: 5.9. To have a comparative measure, in recent years, the number of homicides in Italy has always been limited to over 500, with a homicide rate of less than 1/100,000.Overall, in 2015, little less than 10.8 million people were arrested and taken into custody in the United States. The largest groups are crimes against property 1.46 million, violent crimes, 0.5 million, drug crimes 1.5 million, and driving under the effect of alcohol or drug 1.1 million.According to official data contained in the report “Prisoners in 2015” (NCJ 250229), as of 31 December 2015, in US federal and state prisons were held 1,526,800 people, with a decrease of 35,000 units (2%) over the previous year.According to another official report (Correctional Populations in The United States, 2015) other 728,000 people would be held in local prisons [as is well known, the United States will use two different terms: Prison is the state or federal prison, Jail is the local prison], 3.9 million subject to periodic inspections (probation), and more than 870,000 people on parole.The total number of people who are called “under the supervision of adult correctional systems” is 6,741,400 (115,000 less than the previous year).The prison population is made up to 18.6% by women. About 117,000 prisoners from 30 states and the Federal Circuit are held in privately operated prisons. The total number of prisoners is decreasing by about 1% a year from 2007 to date. From 2014 to 2015 the decrease was 1.7%.Both these reports are prepared by the BJS (Bureau of Justice Statistics), a federal agency.

Opinion PollsIn recent years, opinion polls show a basic ambivalence: when given a simple “yes” or “no” to whether one supports the death penalty, the answer “yes” maintains favour, and its decline, year by year, is slow. Instead, when opinion polls include a question offering life imprisonment without parole, things change drastically.A nationwide survey on September 29, 2016 reports that for the first time in 45 years, the support for the death penalty drops below 50%.The Pew Research Center has published the results of its periodic survey of the death penalty. This is an incomplete survey, because it only includes the yes/no options, and does not include the “life without parole” alternative, which in other surveys in recent years has often gained the majority.In the 2016 poll, 49% are in favor and 42% opposed to the death penalty. Last year they were 56% favorable and 38% opposed.Public support for the death penalty fell by 7 percentage points in the last year.The poll marks the first time in 45 years that support for capital punishment polled below 50%, when a Gallup poll in released in November 1971 also reported that 49% of Americans supported the death penalty. 42% of respondents told Pew that they oppose capital punishment, the most since a May 1966 Gallup poll reported 47% of Americans against the death penalty. The poll results reflect the continuation—and perhaps acceleration—of a 20-year trend of decreasing support for, and increasing opposition to, capital punishment. Support for the death penalty declined across every demographic group in the past year, with the largest decline coming among Independents (13 percentage points). Majorities of Blacks (63%), Hispanics (50%), 18-29 year-olds (51%), college graduates (51%), Democrats (58%), and people with no religious affiliation (50%) now oppose the death penalty and—while comprising less than a majority—more women, Independents, and Catholics say they oppose the death penalty than support it. While 72% of Republicans say they favor capital punishment, support for the death penalty among Republicans dropped 5 points in the past year.White evangelical Protestants continue to back the use of the death penalty by a wide margin (69% favor, 26% oppose). White mainline Protestants also are substantially more likely to support (60%) than oppose (31%) the death penalty. Among Catholics, opinion is more divided: 43% of Catholics favor capital punishment, while 46% oppose it. Since 2011, support for the death penalty has declined among every demographic group, with overall support falling by 13 points.

The death penalty for womenIn the United States, there are 2,848 men (98,14%) and 54 women (1,86%) on death row. As of 1° ottobre 2016 there were 61 male and 1 female on the federal death row. Since 1977, 16 women (4 black and 12 white) have been executed out of a total of 1,442 people, as of 31 December 2016.

United NationsOn 19 December 2016, the United States voted against the Resolution on a Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty at the UN General Assembly.

South Florida federal prosecutors have reached a plea agreement with Esteban Santiago, the 28-year-old mentally ill veteran who opened fire at the Ft. Lauderdale airport on January 6, 2017, killing five people. In exchange for prosecutors withdrawing their notice of intent to seek the death penalty, Esteban agreed to plead guilty and to be sentenced to life in prison without parole.

(Source: DPIC, 01/05/2018)

09 May 2018 :

BJS Releases “Capital Punishment, 2016”. The nation's death rows continue to shrink more rapidly than new defendants are being sentenced to death, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) statistical brief, "Capital Punishment, 2016," released April 30, 2018. The statistical brief analyzes information on those under sentence of death in the United States as of December 31, 2016. It contains official government figures documenting continuing declines in executions, new death sentences, and death-row populations across the U.S. BJS reports that 2,814 prisoners remained under sentence of death in 32 states and the federal system at the end of 2016, representing a decrease of 58 prisoners and a 2% decline in the U.S. death-row population in 2016. It was the sixteenth consecutive annual decrease in the number of prisoners under sentence of death in the U.S., down 787 (22%) since the year-end high of 3,601 on December 31, 2000. BJS tracks the status of death-row prisoners from the date they are admitted to a state or federal correctional facility on capital charges, not the date they were actually sentenced. According to BJS, 32 prisoners were admitted to state or federal death rows in 2016. (DPIC uses a slightly different counting method that reported 31 new death sentences imposed in 2016.) The BJS data indicates that the decline in the size of death row is attributable to factors other than execution. BJS reports that 70 prisoners were removed from death row in 2016 by means other than execution, such as exoneration, the reversal of a conviction or death sentence, commutation, or death by other causes, as compared with 20 who were executed. Nineteen prisoners were reported to have died on death rows of natural causes; 11 prisoners were removed from Connecticut's death row when its state supreme court declared its death-penalty statute unconstitutional; and 40 were released from death rows when their convictions and/or death sentences were overturned in the courts.

(Source: DPIC, 30/04/2018)

08 April 2018 :

Study Analyzes Causes of “Astonishing Plunge” in Death Sentences in the United States. Multiple factors—from declining murder rates to the abandonment of capital punishment by many rural counties and substantially reduced usage in outlier counties that had aggressively imposed it in the past—have collectively led to an “astonishing plunge” in death sentences over the last twenty years, according to a new study, Lethal Rejection, published in the 2017/2018 Albany Law Review. Using data on death-eligible cases from 1994, 2004, and 2014, Drake University law professor David McCord and Niagara University criminal justice professor Talia Roitberg Harmon examined a range of factors to determine what caused the more than 75% reduction in death sentences in the U.S. between 1994 and 2014. The authors found that just over half the decline could be attributed to a reduction in the number of potentially death-eligible murders, as a result of a combination of lower murder rates, Supreme Court decisions making murders committed by intellectually disabled offenders and offenders aged 17 or younger ineligible for the death penalty, and the abolition of the death penalty by six states. The rest of the decline, they said, was attributable to subjective decisions by prosecutors and sentencers, a factor they called “changing perceptions of death-worthiness.” Murders in the 37 states that authorized the death penalty in 1994 fell from 19,250 that year to 12,440 in 2014—a 35.4% decline. However, death sentences dropped by more than double that rate, from 310 to 73—a 76.5% decline. McCord and Harmon also attempted to identify factors that contributed to prosecutors’ and sentencers’ perceptions of death worthiness, which accounted for nearly half of the death-sentencing decline. The addition of life without parole as a sentencing option did not, they said, have a significant impact in lowering death sentences, except in Texas. Rather, they found that death sentences were being sought and imposed at lower rates in less aggravated murder cases, in cases with multiple perpetrators, and against defendants under age 21. They also found two types of significant geographical effects: death-sentencing dropped significantly in low-population counties across the country and in five of the nation’s highest volume death-sentencing counties (Harris, TX; Cook, IL; Pima, AZ; Philadelphia, PA; and Miami-Dade, FL). While the researchers did not report how many fewer death sentences were imposed in these counties in 2014, they described the decline as having an “outsized” effect on the national total. They conclude, “The decline in death sentencing in the United States from 1994 has been relatively rapid, quite steep, and is continuing—from the endpoint of our dataset, death sentences declined from 73 in 2014 to 49 in 2015; and in 2016 only 31 death sentences were imposed. The American death penalty seems like an ever-crankier version of the Cheshire Cat: it is grudgingly disappearing, leaving behind only its frown.”

(Source: DPIC, 07/04/2018)

27 March 2018 :

In a simple question, American voters support the death penalty 58 - 33 percent for persons convicted of murder, according to a Quinnipiac University National Poll released today. But when offered a choice between the death penalty or life in prison with no chance of parole, American voters choose the life option 51 - 37 percent, the first time a majority of voters backed the life without parole option since the independent Quinnipiac University Poll first asked this question in 2004. There are deep party and gender divisions as Republicans back the death penalty 59 - 29 percent. Backing the life option are Democrats 73 - 19 percent and independent voters 49 - 37 percent. Women back the life option 56 - 33 percent. Men are divided as 45 percent back the life option and 42 percent support the death penalty. Although the Trump administration called on U.S. attorneys this week to consider using the death penalty in some drug-related cases, American voters are united as they oppose 71 - 21 percent. Opponents to President Donald Trump's plan to use the death penalty for drug dealers tied to overdose deaths included a majority of Republicans, 57 %; Democrats, 87 %; and independents, 69 %. Voters say 75 - 20 percent that this use of the death penalty would not help stop the opioid crisis. But voters say 64 - 31 percent that the death penalty should not be abolished nationwide. Democrats are divided as 47 percent say abolish the death penalty and 46 percent say don't abolish it. Every other listed party, gender, education, age and racial group is opposed to abolishing the death penalty. The poll, which surveyed nearly 1,300 voters via telephone from March 16 to 20, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 % points.

(Source: masslive.com, poll.qu.edu, 22/03/2018)

27 March 2018 :

Attorney General tells prosecutors to seek death penalty in drug cases. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions instructed federal prosecutors on Wednesday to seek the death penalty in drug-related cases whenever it is legally permissible, saying the Justice Department must ramp up its efforts in the wake of the opioid epidemic. Sessions' controversial mandate to prosecutors comes on the heels of a plan announced by President Donald Trump earlier this week, which called for executing opioid dealers and traffickers. "In the face of all of this death, we cannot continue with business as usual," Sessions said in a statement. Trump announced the plan to seek the death penalty against some drug offenders during a stop at Manchester Community College in New Hampshire on March 19. Such punishment, the president offered, is needed if the United States wants to get serious about reducing the number of opioid-related deaths. Opioids, including prescription opioids, heroin and synthetic drugs such as fentanyl, killed more than 42,000 people in the U.S. in 2016, more than any other year on record, and remains the leading cause of death for Americans under the age of 50, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

(Source: Reuters, 21/03/2018)

27 February 2018 :

Trump wants drug dealers to face death penalty. The leader of the world's largest economy believes all drug dealers should face the death penalty, news website Axios reported late on Sunday. President Donald Trump considers drug traffickers to be as bad as serial killers and would "love to have a law" that executes dealers in the U.S., unnamed sources told Axios. While he admits that such a law would be impossible to pass, the head of state may support legislation that requires a 5-year minimum sentence for dealers selling as little as 2 grams of fentanyl, Axios stated. Use of the synthetic opiod, more potent than heroin, has been steadily climbing in North America, producing an increasing number of fatal overdoses. The government must make drug dealers fear for their lives, Trump has told associates, pointing to Singapore and the Philippines - where offenders can face death - as examples. Trump's comments mirror those of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. The controversial leader gave police the authority to execute drug peddlers - Duterte has even admitted to personally killing criminal suspects - but the matter has morphed into a human rights situation amid widespread reports of extrajudicial killings. Trump "often jokes about killing drug dealers," a senior administrative official told Axios. "He'll say, 'You know the Chinese and Filipinos don't have a drug problem. They just kill them,'" the official said. According to Axios, Trump's team is reportedly discussing the prospect of adopting elements of Singapore's zero tolerance policy, such as more anti-drug education in schools.

(Source: CNBC News, 26/02/2018)

22 February 2018 :

Lack of Death-Penalty Counsel Brings Guantánamo War Crimes Trial to a Halt. A Guantánamo military commission judge has indefinitely suspended proceedings in the death-penalty trial of Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, accused of planning al-Qaida’s alleged 2000 bombing of the Navy warship USS Cole off the coast of Yemen. Expressing exasperation over his continuing inability to compel civilian death-penalty lawyers to return to the case, Air Force Colonel Vance Spath halted the proceedings on February 16. “I am abating these proceedings indefinitely,” Spath said. “We’re done until a superior court tells me to keep going.” Nashiri’s entire civilian defense team resigned for undisclosed ethical reasons, amid allegations that military officials had violated attorney-client privilege by eavesdropping on legal meetings at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility at which Nashiri has been held for the majority of his 15 years in U.S. custody. The resignations of veteran death-penalty defender Rick Kammen and civilian attorneys Rosa Eliades and Mary Spears followed Spath's refusal to allow the defense lawyers to investigate something that Kammen had discovered in a site reserved for attorney-client meetings. Because the discovery involved classified information, the lawyers were prohibitted from discussing it with their client, placing them, they said in an impossible ethical bind. Citing this ethical problem, the lawyers sought and received permission from Marine Brig. Gen. John Baker, the chief defense counsel for the Military Commissions Defense Organization, to withdraw from the case, leaving Nashiri's defense solely in the hands of a single military lawyer, Navy Lt. Alaric Piette, who had never tried a murder case. Spath then ordered Baker to rescind the order, and when Baker refused, sentenced him to 21 days of confinement for contempt of court. Harvey Rishikof, the Convening Authority of the Guantánamo tribunals, released Baker from confinement pending appeal and Spath and Piette have repeatedly clashed over Piette's request to have an experienced death-penalty lawyer appointed as his co-counsel in the case. Spath’s abatement of the proceedings came on the last day of a weeklong hearing in which Eliades and Spears ignored prosecutorial subpoenas to appear in court by video feed. After assembling the defense and prosecution in the court, Spath delivered what media reports described as "a 30-minute monologue" expressing frustration over having his orders ignored, alleged inaction by Pentagon officials to help him return the counsel to the case, and uncertainty over his authority raised by Baker's actions. “We need somebody to tell us, ‘Is that really what that says despite every other court system in America thinking differently?’” Spath said. “We need action from somebody other than me. And we’re not getting it.” Spath, who said he was considering retiring from the Air Force, said he had debated “for hours” whether to dismiss the case, but chose not to, saying that would have “rewarded the defense for their clear misbehavior and misconduct.” Nashiri, who has been diagnosed with PTSD and depression, remains a law-of-war detainee at Guantánamo Bay’s secretive Camp 7, which houses both captives facing war crimes trials and uncharged war prisoners.

(Source: Miami Herald, 16/02/2018)

26 February 2018 :

U.S. District Judge Brian M. Cogan in New York City today sentenced Al Qaeda operative Ibrahim Suleiman Adnan Adam Harun, 47, to life in prison. Harun, or Spin Ghul, as he was known to fellow militants, was not present in court for the trial. Since his extradition from Italy in October 2012, he has insisted he is a “warrior” who should face a military tribunal rather than criminal proceedings. He was convicted in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York in March 2017 for participating in lethal attacks against US and coalition troops in Afghanistan and for attempting to bomb the US Embassy in Nigeria. Harun, who claims Niger citizenship, says he was born in 1971 when his parents were on a pilgrims’ journey to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Harun was seriously injured in an April 2003 machine gun and grenade ambush attack at a US military base in Afghanistan, that killed Pfc. Jerod Dennis, 19, and Airman 1st Class Raymond Losano, 24, authorities said. Harun escaped across the border into Pakistan. US soldiers recovered a small brown Quran near the scene of firefight and the FBI found Harun's fingerprints on it, the government said. Harun was sent to Nigeria with orders to detonate a bomb at the US Embassy, but the plan fell apart, the government said. He fled to Libya, where he was jailed from 2005 to 2011, the government said in a news release. In June 2011, Harun was taken into custody by Italian authorities on a ship carrying 1,200 North African refugees from an island on the Mediterranean Sea to the Italian mainland, court document said. Harun allegedly told Italian authorities that he was an al Qaeda member and had sought to enter Europe in 2005 to carry out attacks, the federal government said. In September (October) 2012, Italian authorities handed Harun over to US authorities after the US government agreed not to seek the death penalty. Since Sept. 11, 2001, federal prosecutors have used civilian courts to bring more than 500 international terrorism cases, obtaining convictions in more than 400 to date, according to Fordham University’s Center on National Security. Most of the others are pending. None of the alleged 9/11 conspirators, who were indicted in 2009 and remain at Guantanamo, has been tried. The earliest that might happen is 2019.

(Source: waaytv.com, 16/02/2018)

15 February 2018 :

Military judge wants civilian attorneys arrested for quitting USS Cole case. The judge in the Abd al Rahim al Nashiri’s terrorism case, Col. Vance Spath, ordered prosecutors Tuesday to draft warrants instructing U.S. Marshals to seize two civilian defense attorneys who have quit the case and ignored his orders and a subpoena to appear at the war court. Air Force Col. Vance Spath is the military judge presiding at the accused USS Cole bomber’s trial at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. He is also chief of the Air Force judiciary. Spath said he would sign the “writs of attachment” on Wednesday and cautioned from the bench that the lawyer for Pentagon-paid attorneys Rosa Eliades and Mary Spears should hustle to federal court, if the lawyer wants to stop what are essentially arrest warrants. Eliades and Spears quit the case in October (see Oct. 11), along with death-penalty lawyer Rick Kammen, over an ethics issue involving intrusion of attorney-client confidentiality, which the judge does not recognize. The three were released from the case by the chief defense counsel, Marine Brig. Gen. John Baker. When Baker, 50, White, refused to rescind that permission on Nov. 1, the judge found Baker in contempt of court and sentenced him to 21 days confinement in his quarters and to pay a $1,000 fine. Unlike Kammen, who was a defense attorney by contract, Eliades and Spears are full-time employees in Baker’s military commissions defense office. Spears has been acting general counsel and Eliades is on an unspecified special project. In addition, Kammen in November had obtained a federal court restraining order protecting him from a forced appearance at the war court. Spath had U.S. Marshals seize a no-show witness before, in October 2016. The judge had earlier Tuesday expressed a reluctance to have the women seized. He said in court that their arrests could cause them to lose their security clearances and jobs with the Department of Defense and thwart his goal of having them return to the defense team of Abd al Rahim al Nashiri. The Saudi, a former CIA prisoner, is awaiting a death-penalty trial as the alleged mastermind of al-Qaida’s Oct. 12, 2000, USS Cole bombing. Seventeen sailors died in the attack. The resignations have left Nashiri without a defense attorney with expertise in capital punishment cases, a learned counsel. Spath has alternately said that, since he didn’t approve Kammen’s resignation, the learned counsel is still on the case but refusing to appear — or that a Navy Lieutenant with no death-penalty defense experience is qualified to handle the case. That lawyer, Navy Lt. Alaric Piette, has sat in court through a series of hearings refusing to participate until a learned counsel arrives. In court Tuesday, case prosecutor Mark Miller called a series of FBI agents to describe how they gathered trial evidence in Yemen in the aftermath of the 2000 bombing: They arrived at suspected safe houses that had been pre-searched by Yemeni forces, who took pictures, seized evidence and then, on second thought, returned items to the buildings. Former FBI agent Steven Krueger described that search as unusual. It began, he said, with a Yemeni brigadier general introducing himself, taking the agent by the hand, leading him inside and pointing to a blue tissue paper with a substance on it and declaring, “there’s your evidence.” For this week’s hearing, the judge had prosecutors swear out subpoenas for Eliades and Spears to come to Military Commissions headquarters in Virginia on Tuesday and explain their positions by a video link to Camp Justice here. Their lawyer, Brandon Fox, filed a motion with the court to quash the appearance orders because the two women have been released from the case. Spath refused to accept the filing on Monday, and then denied an earlier effort to quash the subpoenas. The two women did not show up at the headquarters on Tuesday. Spath has declared Baker’s decision to release them “null and void” and said at the conclusion of court Tuesday that he was compelling their attendance to “assist them in getting to the commissions so they can tell what their good cause is” for quitting.

(Source: miamiherald.com, 13/02/2018)

17 February 2018 :

Pentagon Fires War Court Official Who Was Attempting to Negotiate End to Guantánamo Death-Penalty Trial. The New York Times reports that U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis fired Harvey Rishikof, who served as the Convening Authority of the Guantánamo tribunals, as Rishikof was engaged in plea negotiations that would potentially have spared the Guantánamo defendants the death penalty in exchange for pleading guilty to the September 11 attacks. The sudden firing of Rishikof, the Pentagon official who oversaw military commission trials at Guantánamo Bay, has raised concerns of political interference in the already tumultuous legal proceedings in the death-penalty trials of the five men charged with plotting the 9/11 attacks on the United States. The Pentagon provided no explanation for the February 5 firing, and David Nevin—who represents accused attack-mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed—told The Times that “the firing fairly raises the question" of whether the Pentagon was attempting to unlawfully influence the convening authority. The Office of the Convening Authority is responsible for approving cases for trial, plea agreements, reviewing convictions and sentences, and providing resources to defense teams. Military law prohibits even the appearance of “unlawful command influence” over the handling of a case. Nevin said the defense has "an obligation to try to learn everything we can" about possible improper influence, and he has asked prosecutors to turn over information relating to Rishikof’s firing. At the same time Rishikof was dismissed, the Pentagon's acting general counsel, William S. Castle discharged Rishikof's legal advisor Gary Brown, also without explanation. Brown and Rishikof’s firings have focused renewed attention on the dysfunctional military tribunals at Guantánamo.

(Source: New York Times, 10/02/2018)

12 February 2018 :

American Bar Association Resolution: Ban Death Penalty for Offenders Age 21 or Younger. On February 5, the American Bar Association (ABA) House of Delegates voted overwhelmingly to adopt a resolution (Resolution 111) calling for an end to the death penalty for offenders who were 21 or younger at the time of the crime. According to a report accompanying the resolution, "there is a growing medical consensus that key areas of the brain relevant to decision-making and judgment continue to develop into the early twenties." The ABA first opposed applying the death penalty against defendants younger than age 18 in a resolution adopted in 1983. In 1988, in Thompson v. Oklahoma, the U.S. Supreme Court cited that ABA resolution as part of the evidence that "it would offend civilized standards of decency to execute a person who was less than 16 years old at the time of his or her offense." Seventeen years later, in Roper v. Simmons (2005), the Court extended the prohibition against executing juveniles to include all defendants under age 18 when the offense occurred. The ABA's report says "[t]he ABA has been – and should continue to be – a leader in supporting developmentally appropriate and evidence-based solutions for the treatment of young people in our criminal justice system, including with respect to the imposition of the death penalty." It cites recent litigation challenging the death penalty for defendants under 21, including a ruling by a Kentucky trial court that said “the death penalty would be an unconstitutionally disproportionate punishment for crimes committed by individuals under 21 years of age." The report also highlights new research on the development of the adolescent brain and legislative trends affording juvenile status or similar protections to people in their early twenties. The report concludes, "this policy proposes a practical limitation based on age that is supported by science, tracks many other areas of our civil and criminal law, and will succeed in making the administration of the death penalty fairer and more proportional to both the crimes and the offenders."

(Source: DPIC, 05/02/2018)

29 January 2018 :

According to a study by the Sentencing Project (Still Life: America’s Increasing Use of Life and Long-Term Sentences, May 03, 2017), there are 53,290 people serving LWOP sentences as of 2016. Most were convicted of murder. Indeed, many thousands were convicted of nonviolent crimes, such as property offenses or drug offenses, and many were convicted of sexual assault, robbery or kidnapping. An additional 150,000 prisoners are serving life sentences, and still more are serving “virtual life sentences,” from which the prisoner will realistically never be released. As of 2016, there were 161,957 people serving life sentences. An additional 44,311 individuals are serving “virtual life” sentences, yielding a total population of life and virtual life sentences at 206,268. The pool of people serving life sentences has more than quadrupled since 1984. Nearly half (48.3%) of life and virtual life-sentenced individuals are African American. Nearly 12,000 people have been sentenced to life or virtual life for crimes committed as juveniles; of these over 2,300 were sentenced to life without parole. More than 17,000 individuals with an LWP, LWOP, or virtual life sentence have been convicted of nonviolent crimes. Within the technical category of life sentences are two classifications: life with the possibility of parole (LWP) and life without the possibility of parole (LWOP). For LWP sentences, the first opportunity for parole typically occurs after 25 or more years in prison and for LWOP, there is no chance for parole. “Virtual life sentences” do not allow parole until an individual has served as much as 50 years in prison or longer. Nearly all states allow or mandate the use of life with parole. In these cases, the government maintains the right to keep an individual in prison for the remainder of his or her life, but there is the potential for release after a certain number of years. These sentences accounted for 108,667 prisoners in 2016. Some states report disproportionately large shares of prisoners serving indeterminate life sentences, the highest among which are Utah, California, New York, Nevada, and Alabama. In Utah, for instance, more than 30 percent of state prisoners are serving LWP sentences. Life-without-parole-sentences eliminate the possibility of release from prison except in the rare case of a clemency or commutation by the executive branch. There are 53,290 people serving LWOP sentences as of 2016. Like LWP sentences, LWOP sentences have been administered disproportionately in a handful of states: combined, Florida (16.7%), Pennsylvania (10.1%), California (9.6%), Louisiana (9.1%), and the federal system (7.2%) comprise just over half (52.7%) of the nation’s total LWOP population. In Delaware, Louisiana, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania more than 10 percent of the state prison population is serving a life sentence with no chance for parole. Virtual or de facto life sentences (VL) is a third category of life sentence which refers to a term of imprisonment that a person is unlikely to survive if carried out in full. There are 44,311 people serving VL sentences as of 2016. Though not considered under the technical definition of a life sentence, there are good reasons to include prisoners serving virtual life sentences in the count. With respect to offenses committed after December 1, 1987, parole has been abolished for all sentences handed down by the federal system, including life sentences, so a life sentence from a federal court will result in imprisonment for the life of the defendant, unless a pardon or reprieve is granted by the President, or if upon appeal, the conviction is quashed. Over 3,200 people nationwide are serving life terms without a chance of parole for nonviolent offenses. Of those prisoners, 80 percent are behind bars for drug-related convictions. Sixty-five percent are African-American, 18 percent are white, and 16 percent are Latino. The ACLU has called these statistics proof of "extreme racial disparities." Nationwide, 6,781 women are serving life or virtual life sentences. This figure represents 3.5 percent of the overall life-sentenced population which is half their representation in the general prison population (7%). All states report one or more women serving a life sentence, but two states—California and Texas—represent a considerable proportion of the national count: 19.8 percent of the country’s female lifers are in California (182 to LWOP) and another 9.9 percent are in Texas. Some of the crimes that led to life sentences include stealing gas from a truck, shoplifting, etc., but only for those with a pattern of habitual criminal offenses. A large number of those imprisoned for life had no prior criminal history whatsoever, but were given the sentence due to the aggravated nature of their crimes. Under some "three-strikes laws", a broad range of crimes ranging from petty theft to murder can serve as the trigger for a mandatory or discretionary life sentence in California. Notably, the U.S. Supreme Court on several occasions has upheld lengthy sentences for petty theft including life with the possibility of parole and 50 years to life, stating that neither sentence conflicted with the ban on "cruel and unusual punishment" in the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. An article gives us more data. “The Moral Problem of Life-Without-Parole Sentences”, by Brandon L. Garrett, professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, Time, October 26, 2017) says that States are just beginning to rethink the need for such lengthy sentences. California Gov. Jerry Brown, for example, has granted parole to thousands serving life sentences, including for violent offenses. According to a 2013 California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation report (CDCR’S Lifer Report Series, “Lifer Parolee Recidivism Report”, January 2013) recidivism among those paroled lifers has been extremely low, and “markedly” less than that of typical released prisoners. For most lifers, no lawyers will be carefully examining the facts of their cases. As the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia put it in a 2015 opinion, “The reality is that any innocent defendant is infinitely better off appealing a death sentence than a sentence of life imprisonment.” That is because convicted to life sentences are not entitled to lawyers once their appeals are over. Perhaps someday the U.S. Supreme Court will reconsider many of the mandatory life-without-parole sentences adopted in this country. Challenges continue to be brought against life-without-parole sentences for juveniles, and in its 2016 ruling in Montgomery v. Louisiana, the court held that a juvenile’s crimes must reflect “permanent incorrigibility,” and that such sentences should be reserved for only “the rarest offenders.” The states with more prisoners serving LWOP sentences are: Florida (8,919 LWOP), Pennsylvania (5,398), California (5,090), Louisiana (4,875), Federal (3,861), Michigan (3,804), Illinois (1,609), Alabama (1,559), Mississippi (1,470), North Carolina (1,387), Virginia (1,338), Georgia (1,243), Missouri (1,144), South Carolina (1,117), Massachusetts (1,018), Oklahoma (887), Texas (798), Iowa (670), Colorado (667), Arkansas (637), Washington (622), Nevada (569), Ohio (560), Arizona (504), Delaware (435), Maryland (338), Tennessee (336), West Virginia (286), New York (275), Nebraska (265), Wisconsin (225), South Dakota (174), Minnesota (130), Idaho (126), Indiana (123), Oregon (118), Kentucky (111), New Hampshire (83), New Jersey (77), Connecticut (73), Maine (64), Utah (64), Hawaii (55), Montana (47), Wyoming (35), Rhode Island (31), North Dakota (30), Kansas (28), Vermont (14), New Mexico (1), Alaska (0, Alaska does not have life without parole in its statute)

(Source: Nessuno tocchi Caino, 29/01/2018)

11 January 2018 :

Murder Victims’ Family Members Speak of Moving Forward Without the Death Penalty. Two recent publications illustrate that a growing number of family members of murder victims are now advocating against capital punishment. In From Death Into Life, a feature article in the January 8, 2018 print edition of the Jesuit magazine America, Lisa Murtha profiles the stories of how several prominent victim-advocates against the death penalty came to hold those views. And in a recently released compilation of essays, Not In Our Name (Oregonians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty), nine family members of murder victims share their stories of coping, grieving, and reconciliation in the face of losing a loved one to murder, and tell how their experiences transformed their views about capital punishment. “While each has endured the extreme pain of losing a loved one to murder, they all are staunchly opposed to what they say is more violence in the form of a state-sanctioned execution and a death penalty,” said Ron Steiner, leader of Oregonians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, which released the essays in November. The death penalty is often characterized as providing justice and closure for family members of the victims. But, Murtha writes, "for many, the death penalty provides neither the closure nor the healing that legal and political systems oftentimes promise. Instead, a growing number of victims’ families are saying it inhibits that healing." Murtha reports on the different reasons offered by five different victims’ families who spoke out against the death penalty in 2016. "One learned how profoundly the murderer had changed in prison, another just wanted the appeals to stop and another discovered that the men originally convicted of the crime were actually innocent," she writes. Murtha also recounts the emotional journeys of Bob Curley, Marietta Jaeger Lane, and Bill Pelke, who are now vocal opponents of the death penalty. After his 10-year-old son Jeffrey was murdered, Curley launched a years-long crusade to reinstate capital punishment in Massachusetts, believing the death penalty might prevent something like this from happening again.” He came to oppose the death penalty after seeing that the man he believed was less culpable for the death of his son received a harsher sentence and became convinced that "the system is just not fair" and could not be trusted to reach the right result in capital cases. Lane, a lifelong practicing Catholic, said she initially wanted to kill the man who abducted and murdered her 7-year old daughter, but she said, "I surrendered and did the only thing I could do, which was give God permission to change my heart.” Pelke's 78-year-old grandmother was robbed and murdered by a group of teenage girls, and 15-year-old Paula Cooper was sentenced to death. Pelke was convinced his grandmother "would have had love and compassion for Paula Cooper and her family and that she wanted me to have that same sort of love and compassion. I learned the most important lesson of my life .... I didn’t have to see somebody else die in order to bring healing from Nana’s death.” A University of Minnesota study ("The Incremental Retributive Impact of a Death Sentence Over Life Without Parole," University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, Volume 49, Issue 4, 2016.) found that just 2.5% of victims' family members reported achieving closure as a result of capital punishment, while 20.1% said the execution did not help them heal. Another study published in the Marquette Law Review (“Assessing the Impact of the Ultimate Penal Sanction on Homicide Survivors: A Two State Comparison,” ), found that family members in homicide proceedings in which the death penalty was unavailable were physically, psychologically, and behaviorally more healthy and expressed greater satisfaction with the legal system than family members in death-penalty cases.

(Source: DPIC, 09/01/2018)

14 January 2018 :

Benghazi 'on scene commander' found guilty on terrorism charges. The defendant, Ahmed Abu Khattala, 46, was the first person charged and prosecuted in the attacks. The trial in federal court in Washington (United States District Court for the District of Columbia) began on Oct. 2 and lasted 7 weeks. Abu Khattalah was convicted on 4 terrorism-related counts, but the jury found Khattalah not guilty on the four murder charges relating to the attack. He faces life in prison. The mixed verdict showed the difficulty of prosecuting terrorism cases when the evidence is not clear-cut. The outcome was reminiscent of the 2010 federal trial of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian man and former Guantánamo Bay detainee who was charged in federal court as a conspirator in the Aug. 7, 1998 bombings of two American embassies in East Africa that killed over 200 people. Mr. Ghailani was acquitted of most of the charges, including each murder count for those who died, but he was still sentenced to life in prison for a conviction on one count of conspiracy. On the night of the attacks, armed men overran the diplomatic compound and set fire to it. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and another State Department employee, Sean Smith, were killed. Hours later, militants attacked the nearby C.I.A. base with mortars and small-arms fire. Two C.I.A. security contractors, Tyrone S. Woods and Glen A. Doherty, were killed, and others were wounded. Prosecutors acknowledged that no evidence existed that Mr. Khattala had personally fired any shots or set any buildings ablaze, but argued that he had nevertheless helped orchestrate the attacks and aided them while they were underway. To make that case, they drew primarily on testimony from three Libyan witnesses and on a database said to be Mr. Khattala’s cellphone records. Kattalah was convicted of: Conspiracy to provide material support and resources to terrorists. Providing material support and resources to terrorists. Using, carrying and discharging a semi-automatic assault rifle during a crime of violence. Maliciously destroying and injuring dwellings and property, and placing lives in jeopardy within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, and attempting to do the same. The government announced last year that it would seek life in prison for Kattalah and not the death penalty in the case. The defense insisted Kattalah was just an innocent bystander. But video of the attack clearly shows him directing some of the attackers. Not mentioned during the trial was the reason for the attack given by the Obama administration - that people were demonstrating in front of the annex because of an anti-Muslim video on YouTube. Testimony from surviving Americans and from Libyan eyewitnesses tells a much different story; that the attack was planned and carried out because Kattalah believed that the annex was a "nest of spies." The American eyewitnesses knew very well it was a coordinated terrorist attack. Despite this, the President Obama - in the midst of his re-election campaign - lied to the American people about the attack to cover up the inadequate security at the annex. Abu Khattala commanded a small militia during the 2011 uprising against Qaddafi. He is said to have participated in the September 11, 2012 attack on the American diplomatic mission at Benghazi, in which Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed. In a December 2013 article about the attack, the New York Times described him as a central figure in the attack according to Libyan witnesses, although he had no known affiliations with terrorist groups. Abu Khattala denies killing the Americans or being part of the attack. On the weekend of June 14–15, 2014, U.S. Delta Force special operations personnel captured him in a covert mission in Libya. Abu Khattala's trial began on October 2, 2017. In his opening statements, Khattala's lawyer, Jeffrey Robinson, denied Khattala's participation in the attacks. On November 28, 2017 a jury acquitted Khattala of 14 of the 18 charges he faced. One additional suspect is currently in US custody. Mustafa al Imam, who was captured in October 2017. He has been charged with three terrorism-related offenses and will make an appearance in federal court in December.

FACTS

Pfizer Blocks the Use of Its Drugs in Executions. The pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced today that it has imposed sweeping controls on the distribution of its products to ensure that none are used in lethal injections, a step that closes off the last remaining open-market source of drugs used in executions. More than 20 American and European drug companies have already adopted such restrictions, citing either moral or business reasons. Nonetheless, the decision from one of the world's leading pharmaceutical manufacturers is seen as a milestone. "With Pfizer's announcement, all F.D.A.-approved manufacturers of any potential execution drug have now blocked their sale for this purpose," said Maya Foa, who tracks drug companies for Reprieve, a London-based human rights advocacy group. "Executing states must now go underground if they want to get hold of medicines for use in lethal injection." The obstacles to lethal injection have grown in the last 5 years as manufacturers, seeking to avoid association with executions, have barred the sale of their products to corrections agencies. Experiments with new drugs, a series of botched executions and covert efforts to obtain lethal chemicals have mired many states in court challenges. The mounting difficulty in obtaining lethal drugs has already caused states to furtively scramble for supplies. Some states have used straw buyers or tried to import drugs from abroad that are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, only to see them seized by federal agents. Some have covertly bought supplies from compounding pharmacies while others, including Arizona, Oklahoma and Ohio, have delayed executions for months or longer because of drug shortages or legal issues tied to injection procedures. A few states have adopted the electric chair, firing squad or the gas chamber as an alternative if lethal drugs are not available. Lawyers for condemned inmates have challenged the efforts of corrections officials to conceal how the drugs are obtained, saying this makes it impossible to know if they meet quality standards or might cause undue suffering. Before Missouri put to death a prisoner on Wednesday, for example, it refused to say in court whether the lethal barbiturate it used, pentobarbital, was produced by a compounding pharmacy or a licensed manufacturer. Akorn, the only approved company making that drug, has tried to prevent its use in executions. Pfizer manufactures 7 of them: the sedatives propofol, midazolam, and hydromorphone, the muscle relaxant pancuronium bromide and 2 variants of it, and potassium chloride, which is used to stop the inmate's heart. Pfizer's decision follows its acquisition last year of Hospira, a company that has made seven drugs used in executions including barbiturates, sedatives and agents that cause paralysis or heart failure. Hospira had long tried to prevent diversion of its products to state prisons but had not succeeded; its products were used in a prolonged, apparently agonizing execution in Ohio in 2014, and are stockpiled by Arkansas, according to documents obtained by reporters. Because these drugs are also distributed for normal medical use, there is no way to determine what share of the agents used in recent executions were produced by Hospira, or more recently, Pfizer. Campaigns against the death penalty, and Europe's strong prohibitions on the export of execution drugs, have raised the stakes for pharmaceutical companies. But many, including Pfizer, say medical principles and business concerns have guided their policies. "Pfizer makes its products to enhance and save the lives of the patients we serve," the company said in Friday's statement, and "strongly objects to the use of its products as lethal injections for capital punishment." Pfizer said it would restrict the sale to selected wholesalers of seven products that could be used in executions. The distributors must certify that they will not resell the drugs to corrections departments and will be closely monitored. Pressure on the drug companies has not only come from human rights groups. Trustees of the New York State pension fund, which is a major shareholder in Pfizer and many other producers, have used the threat of shareholder resolutions to push 2 other companies to impose controls and praised Pfizer for its new policy. "A company in the business of healing people is putting its reputation at risk when it supplies drugs for executions," Thomas P. DiNapoli, the state comptroller, said in an email. "The company is also risking association with botched executions, which opens it to legal and financial damage." Less than a decade ago, lethal injection was generally portrayed as a simple, humane way to put condemned prisoners to death. Virtually all executions used the same 3-drug combination: sodium thiopental, a barbiturate, to render the inmate unconscious, followed by a paralytic and a heart-stopping drug. In 2009, technical production problems, not the efforts of death-penalty opponents, forced the only federally approved factory that made sodium thiopental to close. That, plus more stringent export controls in Europe, set off a cascade of events that have bedeviled state corrections agencies ever since. Many states have experimented with new drug combinations, sometimes with disastrous results, such as the prolonged execution of Joseph Wood in Arizona in 2014, using the sedative midazolam. The state's executions are delayed as court challenges continue. Under a new glaring spotlight, deficiencies in execution procedures and medical management have also been exposed. After winning a Supreme Court case last year for the right to execute Richard E. Glossip and others using midazolam, Oklahoma had to impose a stay only hours before Mr. Glossip's scheduled execution in September. Officials discovered they had obtained the wrong drug, and imposed a moratorium as a grand jury conducts an investigation. A majority of the 32 states with the death penalty have imposed secrecy around their drug sources, saying that suppliers would face severe reprisals or even violence from death penalty opponents. In a court hearing this week, a Texas official argued that disclosing the identity of its pentobarbital source "creates a substantial threat of physical harm." But others, noting the evidence that states are making covert drug purchases, see a different motive. "The secrecy is not designed to protect the manufacturers, it is designed to keep the manufacturers in the dark about misuse of their products," said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a research group in Washington. Georgia, Missouri and Texas have obtained pentobarbital from compounding pharmacies, which operate without normal F.D.A. oversight and are intended to help patients meet needs for otherwise unavailable medications. But other states say they have been unable to find such suppliers. Texas, too, is apparently hedging its bets. Last fall, shipments of sodium thiopental, ordered by Texas and Arizona from an unapproved source in India, were seized in airports by federal officials. For a host of legal and political reasons as well as the scarcity of injection drugs, the number of executions has declined, to just 28 in 2015, compared with a recent peak of 98 in 1999, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Hands off Cain is an international league of citizens and parliamentarians for the abolition of the death penalty in the world. It is a non-profit, non-violent, transnational and trans-national Partito Radicale founded in Brussels in 1993 and recognized in 2005 by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a development co-operation NGO.